Lira

/ˈliː.ra/ (LEE-rah)

noun

A state of smooth, continuous movement; flow without friction.

Summary

Lira is an opinionated, keyboard-first, local-first desktop system for independent work.

Introduction

Lira exists to solve a specific problem I have: managing multiple projects, tasks, and captured thoughts without breaking a keyboard-driven workflow.

A large part of Lira was vibe-coded to get a working prototype fast. Some of that code is messy, and there are parts I simply don’t like or wouldn’t write that way myself. Because of that, a full rewrite is very likely at some point.

That said, despite the rough edges, Lira is genuinely useful. I use it daily, and it already solves a real pain point for me.

Lira is built around my personal workflow, but anyone can use it. Just expect things to be incomplete, occasionally inconsistent, and very much in alpha.

Keymappings

Scope	Keybinding	Action
Global	`Ctrl+``	Toggles the sidebar
	:	Opens the command launcher
	Esc	Closes the active modal or palette
	Shift+H	Moves backward through navigation history
	Shift+L	Moves forward through navigation history
	Space u r	Cycles the right rail between auto/pinned/hidden states
	Space u p	Pins the right rail to stay visible
	Space u h	Hides the right rail on responsive pages
	Space u a	Lets the right rail auto-show based on width
Leader sequences	Space g t p	Opens the Go To Page palette
	Space l p	Opens the Projects palette
	Space l t	Opens the Tasks palette
	Space l g	Opens the Goals palette
	Space l i	Opens the Inbox palette
	Space n i	Opens quick capture
	Space n g	Opens New Goal
	Space n t	Opens New Task
	Space n p	Opens New Project
Command palette	Arrow Up / Arrow Down	Moves selection
	Ctrl+P / Ctrl+N	Moves selection
	Tab / Shift+Tab	Cycles selection
	Enter	Confirms the highlighted item
	Esc	Closes the palette
Goals page	Ctrl+H / Ctrl+ArrowLeft	Focuses the previous column (left or center)
	Ctrl+L / Ctrl+ArrowRight	Focuses the next column (center or right)
	j / ArrowDown	Moves to next goal card or filter (based on active column)
	k / ArrowUp	Moves to previous goal card or filter (based on active column)
	Tab / Shift+Tab	Cycles selection (goal card or filter)
	Enter	Opens the focused goal
	d (twice)	Deletes the focused goal
Tasks page	j / ArrowDown	Moves to the next task
	k / ArrowUp	Moves to the previous task
	Enter	Opens the highlighted task
Task detail page	Esc	Closes the page when the editor is in normal mode
	Shift+H / Shift+L	Works in normal mode for history navigation
Projects page (List)	Space p d	Opens a palette listing docs linked to the current project
	n	Creates a new task
	x	Toggles the completion status of the highlighted task
	d (twice)	Deletes the highlighted task
	1	Filters the list to show "To do" tasks
	2	Filters the list to show "Completed" tasks
	3	Filters the list to show "All" tasks
Projects board	h / ArrowLeft	Focuses the previous lane
	l / ArrowRight	Focuses the next lane
	Tab / Shift+Tab	Cycles lane focus
	j	Moves to the next task inside the focused lane
	k	Moves to the previous task inside the focused lane
	n	Creates a new task in the focused lane
	Enter	Opens the focused task
	Shift+H	Moves the selected task card to the lane on the left
	Shift+L	Moves the selected task card to the lane on the right
Editor	Alt + Z	Centers the current line in the view (works in Insert & Normal)
	z z	Centers the current line in the view (Normal mode)
Modal submit	Enter	Submits New Task, New Goal, New Project (single-line inputs/selects)
	Ctrl+Enter / Cmd+Enter	Submits New Task, New Goal (textarea)
	Enter	Submits New Project (description textarea)
	Shift+Enter	Inserts a newline in New Project description textarea

The dashboard always pins the right rail so momentum insights stay visible, while other pages follow the leader-controlled mode you set above.

Vault Storage

Lira currently uses a vault-based storage model.

• a vault is a user-selected directory
• if the selected vault path does not exist, Lira creates it
• ~ paths such as ~/Documents/lira are supported
• the primary database is stored as lira.sqlite3 in the root of your vault
• captured inbox items are currently stored in .inbox/inbox.json inside the vault

Example:

/home/your-user/Documents/lira/lira.sqlite3

Local Development

Install dependencies:

pnpm install

Run the desktop app:

pnpm tauri dev

Run the web dev server only:

pnpm dev

Create a production frontend build:

pnpm build